I mentioned to you earlier that I have in my heart the dream to do a Knoppix CD just for lawyers, to show them how GNU/Linux can work for them, and I told you that there were some important missing pieces. Marbux has been busy compiling a list of what would be needed, which we'll share with you when it's done. As I told you, the biggest missing piece is WordPerfect®, because it does things law firms need. Today, I heard the exciting news from Marbux, who noticed it on the
dev@wp.openoffice.org list, that OpenOffice 2.0 now can be used to open and read WordPerfect files. You can see the WordPerfect filter listed as a feature on OOo's website. Another new feature is the support of digital signatures, which is something else of interest to lawyers. And OpenOffice.org now supports the same number of rows in spreadsheet documents as Microsoft Excel, so that should solve interoperability issues. "The new version now takes OpenOffice.org to the same level as Microsoft Excel."When I first heard the news about WordPerfect, I wrote to Daniel Carrera to ask him if it was true, and he replied: Yes
Truth in advertising:- This is 2.0 (betas available), not 1.x.- This is import only, not export.For 1.x users we have a command-line program 'wpd2sxw' and a plugin (which apparently is hard to install).
http://wp.openoffice.org/filter.htmlhtt ... forge.net/ So one missing piece is now only half missing. By the way, if you are a lawyer who is not familiar yet with the command line in GNU/Linux, here's a how to from LinuxCommand.org to get you off the ground. It also explains very nicely why sometimes you need more than just your mouse. The missing half, then, is that you can't export Word Perfect documents. Of course, lawyers will want or need to be able to write WP documents, too, not just read them. For example, if another law firm sends them a contract in WP, they read it, yes, but they also want to write any changes in the document and send it back. I so hope someone can make that happen.
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